"Villain! what are you doing?" exclaimed Old Death, his eyes glaring with ferocious hate—with infernal spite—with blood-thirsty malignity,—glaring, indeed, like those of a famished tiger caught in the snare of the hunter, and beholding a stately deer at a little distance: "what are you doing? You are going to rob me—to plunder me—after all I have done for you—all the good things I have put in your way! But I will be revenged yet—I will send you to the scaffold—I will wreak a terrific vengeance on your head. Keep off, I say—touch not that safe! Damnation light upon you!—perdition seize you! Oh! Tom—dear Tom—don't rob me—don't! You'll drive me to despair—I shall die of grief—and you will be my murderer Tom—do listen to me! Ah! he opens the safe—the wretch—the villain!" Thus did Old Death menace and pray—coax and moan by turns; but at last his voice swelled into a howl of fiend-like rage, which rose like the wailing of a damned soul upon the silence of that early morning-hour. But Rainford seemed indifferent alike to his earnest beseechings and his paroxysms of fury. That last, ferocious outburst of rage had completely exhausted the old man; and gasping as if under the influence of strangulation, he fell back in the seat to which he was fastened by the strong cords. But his convulsive motions—his hollow, flashing eyes—his parched lips—and the quivering of his hands, denoted how acutely—how keenly he felt the work of depredation that was in progress. For Rainford had opened the safe, and was now busily engaged in examining the various drawers, and also sundry pocket-books which he found therein. The former contained hoards of gold coins, and the latter were filled with Bank-notes, making an aggregate of immense value. The highwayman secured about his person a sum of five thousand pounds, murmuring to himself, "This is sufficient to enable me to become an honest man: I will not leave the old villain penniless." He then searched the safe for any private papers that might be deposited there; and in a drawer which he had well-nigh overlooked, he found a small leather case containing a roll of letters, tied round with a piece of riband so faded that it was impossible to determine what its colour might have originally been. A single glance at these documents awakened such emotions of mingled pleasure and pain within his breast, that he determined to possess himself of them; and replacing them in the leather case, he secured them about his person with even more care than he had bestowed on the Bank-notes. Having thus rifled the safe of as much as he chose to take away, he closed the iron door, locked it, and placing the key on the table, said to Old Death, "I am now about to take my departure from this house. Is there any one living here besides yourself?"